Reuters began the rumors early last month when it cited analysts as saying that Verizon was likely to ditch the unlimited option and switch to a tiered pricing scheme. Now Engadget is claiming that this prediction was correct and that its sources say that a tiered pricing scheme will likely land by July 29.

The report says that the pricing scheme will likely be around that offered by AT&T ($25 for 2GB, $15 for 200MB). That would mean that Verizon users would ultimately be paying more per MB than they are currently.

All indications are that T-Mobile and Sprint, though, have no intentions of following Verizon and AT&T into the world of capped connections. Sprint is instead opting to charge users a small premium ($10) on its 4G connections -- T-Mobile may adopt that alternative approach as well.

Will customers embrace AT&T and Verizon's tiered, capped data plans? Or will they rebel and jump to Sprint and Verizon and agree to pay a nominal fee if they want their data to be transferred at faster rates? Only time will tell, but it should be interesting to watch for whether Verizon officially airs a tiered smart phone data scheme.

Comments

Threshold

Username

Password

remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

I really wonder who would stand in line to pay $40 for 250MB of data. Assuming a YouTube video stream is 5MB, that means you get to stream 50 videos and be done with it, assuming you don't use it for anything else. I've done this on my device (at work) on a weekly basis for a few months in a row.

I'm guessing their reasoning will be that most users will be using Wi-Fi and not their data plan anyways, but if that's the case then why require it for a smartphone? To "subsidize the cost"? I think that's bull. I seem to remember a subsidized RAZR on release date cost as much as a subsidized smartphone does today. With a data plan, these "Smartphones" pay themselves at least twice over.

And it's not like I'm being an idiot. I understand the limitations of current infrastructure and all that, but too often companies will say that price increases are an "investment." If that were really the case, then these increases would be temporary or non-existant; since a superior infrastructure will sway many users from competitors, these improvements should be seen as a long-term investment.

But hey, it's why I'll never make CEO. My investors will probably kick me out for having a long-term outlook.